his state was not so great nor his
coffers so full, his heart was merrier and his conscience more void of
offence against man and God. If Robin lived by plunder, so did the king;
the one took toll from a few travellers, the other from a kingdom; the
one dealt hard blows in self-defence, the other killed thousands in war
for self-aggrandizement; the one was a patriot, the other an invader.
Verily Robin was far the honester man of the two, and most worthy the
admiration of mankind.

Nor was the kingdom of Robin Hood so much less extensive than that of
England's king as men may deem, though its tenants were fewer and its
revenues less. For in those days forest land spread widely over the
English isle. The Norman kings had driven out the old inhabitants far
and wide, and planted forests in place of towns, peopling them with deer
in place of men. In its way this was merciful, perhaps. Those rude old
kings were not content unless they were hunting and killing, and it was
better they should kill deer than men. But their cruel game-laws could
not keep men from the forests, and the woods they planted served as
places of shelter for the outlaws they made.

William the Conqueror, so we are told, had no less than sixty-eight
forests peopled with deer, and guarded against intrusion of common man
by a cruel interdict. His successors added new forests, until it looked
as if England might be made all woodland, and the red deer its chief
inhabitants. Sherwood forest, the favorite lurking-place of the bold
Robin, stretched for thirty miles in an unbroken line. But this was only
part of Robin's "realm of plesaunce." From Sherwood it was but a step to
other forests, stretching league after league, and peopled by bands of
merry rovers, who laughed at the king's laws, killed and ate his
cherished deer at their own sweet wills, and defied sheriff and
man-at-arms, the dense forest depths affording them innumerable
lurking-places, their skill with the bow enabling them to defend their
domain from assault, and to exact tribute from their foes.

Such was the realm of Robin Hood, a realm of giant oaks and silvery
birches, a realm prodigal of trees, o'ercanopied with green leaves until
the sun had ado to send his rays downward, carpeted with brown moss and
emerald grasses, thicketed with a rich undergrowth of bryony and
clematis, prickly holly and golden furze, and a host of minor shrubs,
while some parts of the forest were so dense that, as Camd